A Battle Half-Won: India’s New Anti-Trafficking Law
The Indian Parliament recently enacted the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 (CLA). Although primarily concerned with targeting rape and sexual assault, the Bill incorporates a range of other offences dealing with violence against women many of which the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) did not envisage. Two such offences relate to trafficking, an area of considerable policy and legal reform internationally. Specifically, the new Section 370 defines the offence of trafficking thus replacing the...
Read MoreCongratulations to Florrie Burke!
A hearty congratulations to Florrie Burke on receiving the inaugural Presidential Award for Extraordinary Efforts to Combat Trafficking in Persons “for her sustained dedication and unparalleled leadership in combating modern slavery through the development and delivery of comprehensive services, the empowerment of survivors to move from slavery to independence, and the transformation of policy to eradicate all forms of human trafficking.” So...
Read MoreComprehensive Immigration Reform Senate bill targets recruiter abuse
The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Senate bill introduced in the Senate yesterday includes key protections against labor recruitment abuse. (See page 577 of the bill: Title III, Subpart F: Prevention of Trafficking in Persons and Abuses Involving Workers Recruited Abroad). Let’s hope these provisions remain intact as the bill works its way through the House!
Read MoreCelebrities in Human Trafficking, Part II
In Part II of this posting I begin to detail the involvement of particular celebrities in human trafficking activism, policy making and general influence. 1. Angelina Jolie Angelina Jolie was recently promoted from Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR, to Special Envoy. Inspired to become an “ardent, persistent and well-briefed humanitarian activist” after filming Tomb Raider in Cambodia, her humanitarian travels for UNHCR to places like Sudan, Sri Lanka, Ecuador, Chad, and Pakistan, receive...
Read MoreAn Update on India’s Criminal Law Amendment
Anti-trafficking advocates often push for definitions of sexual exploitation to include sex work. In a victory for sex work advocates, the amended section 370 of the Indian Penal Code recognizes the difference between sexual exploitation and sex work. Sex workers and women’s rights activists across India have welcomed the Government’s move to drop the word “prostitution” as exploitation from the amended Section 370 of the Indian Penal Code. The new formulation targets sexual...
Read MoreDaphna Hacker and Orna Cohen. “The Shelters in Israel for Survivors of Human Trafficking.” US Department of State (2012).
Shelters are an important part of the slim segment of the anti-trafficking industrial complex that can be deemed a human rights project. They present the opportunity to give genuine aid to victims. But what is genuine aid? A recent report to the U.S. State Department by law professor Daphna Hacker and social work professor Orna Cohen provides a rich account of how difficult it can be to answer that question in theory and in practice. Hacker and Cohen were commissioned to study the two...
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